"But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God."
Unfortunately, the yawning chasm between rationality and creationism necessitates such a footbridge.
What's left once a person reconciles evolution with religion?
Plenty.
Deism, or moderate theism, or Catholicism, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or whatever other religious tradition of choice is compatible with science. There's also nonliteral interpretation of the best bits of the Bible as moral allegory, religious ritual, religious community, music, art, literature, and, most wondrous of all, the fabulous world of opening one's eyes to . . . understanding and appreciating the world.
Imagination is much better stimulated by recognition that modern theories of biological evolution offer the best explanation for the observable fact of biological evolution. Yes, Virginia, there really is a chimp ancestor in your family tree! Grounds for rejoicing. Yes, you really can count bacteria not only as your distant ancestors but also as the power houses of your cells and the photosynthetic machines that capture Ra's munificence. More grounds for rejoicing.
In an ideally rational world, it would not be necessary to pander to religious sensibilities so that some might open their closed minds to the wonders of reality. In an ideally rational world, there would be no need for supernatural mythologies or fantasies of special creation. In an ideal world, the nation whose Founding Fathers considered it expedient to entrench separation of Church and State would have honored and protected that prescient ethos by providing an educational system commensurate with the nation's wealth. In an ideally rational world, the wall would have been built higher rather than ignoring the fundamentalist sappers who were tunneling under the wall.
I don't read self-help books, though I have perused some. As far as I could tell from my brief survey, much of the material appears to comprise regurgitated advice, reassembled in the latest book that purports to offer new insights. This sales strategy, of course, employs a fallacious appeal to novelty. Perhaps some of the insights are novel and I simply have not examined enough books to determine this, but how many psychological wisdoms could be discoverable?
The books often illustrate their "pearls of wisdom" by way of anecdotal tales about the follies and triumphs of individuals struggling with a range of problems. It strikes me that self-help books provide mirrors. The reader is able to identify with particular elements of these tales and to benefit from self-critique, or more helpfully, from inspiration. Because the stories could not possibly be personally directed at the reader, the person seeking help is safe to identify with anecdotal mistakes without feeling personally criticized and demoralized, or becoming defensive and resorting to self-justification.
What does any of this have to do with atheism?
Many who attack the tactics of the New Atheists say that nobody changes their mind because they have been directly called a fool. I'd agree with this – to say, "you are an idiot to believe that, so you must change your mind!" is scarcely a convincing argument for the truth value of the alternative belief advocated.
In fact, to do so would be very much like the tactics that theists too often use to try to convince atheists to convert to theism:
a) "You can't be a good moral person if you don't acknowledge His existence and let God into your heart." b) "You are merely spitefully / fearfully / stubbornly / rebelliously / selfishly denying the God who you really believe really exists." c) "You do not want to believe in God because you selfishly don't want to submit to God's will." d) "You cannot not believe in God – the fact that so many believe in God proves that they must be right." e) "You are being arrogant if you claim that your scientific understanding is valid and deny that the Bible version is the Truth."
However, theists have also heard until recently – almost unopposed – believer-targetted versions of these messages:
a) "You can't be a good moral person if you don't acknowledge His existence and let God into your heart." b) "Those who refuse to believe in Our Savior are merely spitefully / fearfully / stubbornly / rebelliously / selfishly denying the God who we must believe really exists." c) "Those who do not want to believe in God do do because they selfishly don't want to submit to God's will." d) "You must believe in God – the fact that so many believe in God proves that we must be right." e) "Atheists are being arrogant when they claim that scientific understanding is valid and deny that the Bible version is the Truth."
I did not even need to alter a) and merely rephrased b) - d). There are many more examples, all fallacious, most of which include appeals to emotion.
Many theists know little of the actual dogma that they ascribe to, little of the arguments that purport to "prove" God's existence, and much less of the history of their religion. All that many Christians "know" is that they have been told that the Bible is literally true and that abundant evidence and proofs exist. Most such people are not looking for empirical information so as to rationally reevaluate their beliefs. They will seek only information that confirms what they wish to believe, and will deride any dissonant information. Some will stubbornly entrench deeper into comforting ignorance.
Until the upsurge of vocal atheism, few believers doubted for a minute that their version of reality was the dominant one. Many resist reevaluating the veridicality of their views.
When theists read that some theists display less than stellar intellects in remaining deluded, like the readers of self-help books they probably assume that the speaker is referring to theists other than themselves. When the science-ignorance of creationism is mentioned, creationists resort to saying that scientists have made errors in the past, so scientists must be mistaken again. When the bigotry and small-minded hatreds of some fundamentalists are exposed, fundamentalists protest that they personally are actually "Evangelical Christians" and not fundamentalists.
Some theists even pretend that religious critics are referring to different dogma and different apologetics than that which they espouse. When core Christian beliefs are called deluded, many Christians say that the critic should not categorize all Christians together, or they resort to the ever-popular accusation that the critic is just not sufficiently well acquainted with doctrine. Similarly, when atheists say that they do not accept the evidence that is claimed to "prove" the existence of supernatural agents, many theists make the category error of claiming that the atheist is not sufficiently well acquainted with religious dogma.
So, despite the fact that it is nonproductive to personally call a theist a fool – for holding religious beliefs to represent literal truth or to be the only route to morality or happiness – any irrrational basis of such claims must be challenged. Unless indoctrinated individuals repeatedly read that the intelligent position does not include adherence to deluded mythologies, inculcated dogma will maintain its anti-rational grip on the minds of those herded into sanctuary from reality. Like the lessons in self-help books, doubts raised by indirect, impersonal messages are more easily considered in private, enabling the more rational amongst the indoctrinated to reconsider the evidence.
Why do Christians hang out on atheist blogs? This is a rhetorical question and definitely not an invitation for comments from Christians.
A friend suggested that they are probably there to bait atheists. I cannot imagine that they hope to convert atheists to Christianity.
Whenever I wish to read an opinion that I trust or to discuss a rational viewpoint, then I am delighted that scienceblogs exists and that fellow atheists belong to Mojoey's blogroll. These make it easier to find bloggers with a rational, humanist worldview.
I definitely am not interested in telling my de-conversion story, because I was so young when I decided that God was an invention that I did not suffer any emotional pangs over de-mything. If I wish to understand the emotional reasons for faith, or for pain at loss of faith, I need only read websites and blogs.
I don't lurk on Christian blogs, attempting to proselytize in the name of rationality. I don't go looking for an opportunity to debate Christians so as to prove the strength of my intellectual dedication to atheism, science, or morality. I did recently and inadvertantly stumble into just such a discussion on an atheist site. I came away less impressed than ever by the fallacious arguments so typical of Christian efforts at apologetics.
Perhaps because most believers entertain some secret doubts because there is no evidence to support their faith, theists seem to have great difficulty accepting that atheists do not suffer agonies of doubt over the rationality of logically following the evidence. How dare atheists feel certainty about their reasoned beliefs when theists struggle with doubt?!
Perhaps because so many Christians are fear-motivated, they have difficulty accepting that atheism is not fear-driven. This probably explains why so many theists suspect that atheists are merely trying to deny their fears – when, in fact, atheists suffer no fear about their nonbelief. I do admit that those nonbelievers who are in the process of escaping delusion probably do experience some lingering remnants of fear due to their early indoctrination.
Perhaps because so many theists struggle with self-control, they think that only fear of God and of eternal punishment could make people behave morally. Fundamentalist bigotry and the so-frequent report of religionist lapses from decent behavior certainly leave me suspicious that authoritarian upbringings more frequently precipitate than prevent moral turpitude.
Perhaps this explains why Christians go to such lengths protesting that Christians really are good people and that so much good is done in the name of religion. Jerry Falwell used some of the conscience money that poured into his televangelical ministry to set up charities to help the "fallen". This may have fooled Christians into believing that Jerry was a good man, but it did not fool Christopher Hitchens, and it certainly did not fool me.
I have almost invariably observed that many discussions between Christians and atheists quite quickly devolve into the Christians' directing personal insults at the atheists – not comments on atheistic actions, or the validity of beliefs, but comments on atheistic personhood. I guess that they cannot help themselves, but as soon as Christians start to fling ad hominems, then one knows that they have reached the bottom of their meager supply of logic.
Here's a hilarious example of a barrel-scraping attempt to retreat from a Godwin's Law faux pas:
"Not tu quoque I provided an amplification of YOUR point, that all people create religions."
Actually, no. The point that I had made was that "religions have been created by people."
This theist's "logic" would be equivalent to converting.
......."All children have teeth."
..........................into
......."All teeth have children."
Baby teeth, perhaps?
I'm not confident that he saw the difference even when it had been pointed out, but perhaps my doubt merely stems from my lack of faith in the cognitive capacity that ensures that people remain trapped by inculcated delusions.
Arcanum sums it up: "Most theists whom I have encountered on the Internet could not reason their way out of a wet paper bag."
Those who point out that they know some very intelligent Christians miss the point that in any nation where the majority have been indoctrinated, they are bound to meet some very intelligent Christians. Statistically, atheists are more likely to be intelligent than are Christians.
I too am sick of the polite refusal to acknowledge this statistic. I notice that this politeness concerning theistic intelligence is more often displayed on sites where Christians lurk. Perhaps I simply have not yet read sufficient Christian posts on these sites to be impressed. Having been bombarded with theistic message since I was a kid, I have heard quite enough and don't plan to waste my time reading their comments.
What do such things prove? Certainly nothing about the philosophical truth value of deism, theism, or atheism. Many of these acts do demonstrate something about the moral fiber (or lack thereof) exhibited by intelligent design creationists and theists.
The latest scandal concerns the apparent usurpation of eighty-four year old Anthony Flew's failing faculties and moderately prominent name by a group of alleged scoundrels who have apparently put theistic words into this published atheist's mouth. Even if these men, through their friendship with Flew, have succeeded in changing Flew's opinion on the possibility of a deity, this proves nothing about whether or not a deity exists.
In a strategy reminiscent of gathering vultures, Flew has been contacted by a flock of religious apologists and Christian institutions.
Mark Oppenheimer makes it appear likely in his New York times article, that Christian apologist Roy Abraham Varghese (below left), assisted perhaps by Christian philosopher John Haldane (below center), and by Orthodox Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder (below right) have taken advantage of the foundering of Flew's once considerable intellect. (Haldane and Schroeder debated Flew in a DVD entitled, “Has Science Discovered God?” The DVD ends with an infomercial for Varghese's book, “The Wonder of the World.”)
Gary Habermas has also hovered in the wings. He is a Christian apologist and professor at Liberty University (which was founded by right-wing conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell). The failing Flew was also courted by Biola University, a conservative Christian school outside Los Angeles, which awarded Flew the Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth. For anyone not familiar with Johnson, he is a lawyer turned proponent of ID creationism.
Publication of "Flew's" supposed turn-around book–with Roy Abraham Varghese cited as coauthor–excited considerable suspicion that Varghese had actually written the entire book. Richard Carrier concludes of Varghese's "Flew" book:
"All this makes this book a grand and shameless lie, a clear violation of God's commandment against bearing false witness."
Varghese admits that the book was his idea, and that Varghese wrote it with the assistance of ghostwriter, Bob Hostetler, an evangelical pastor and author from Ohio. Cynthia DiTiberio, book editor at publisher HarperOne considered a ghostwriter for the project essential. Varghese claims that "Tony" (who is reportedly unaware of much of the content) OKed the book. Says Varghese:
"The only reason why people ask questions about his mental faculties is because he dared to change his mind. But let’s not forget that his new view of the world is one embraced by many of today’s leading philosophers in the Anglo-American world as well as most of the pioneers of modern science. This is the dirty little secret that the “new atheists” and their drum-beaters never talk about. It’s so much easier to shoot the messenger!"
If that is the usual caliber of Varghese's writing, I cannot imagine that the book will attract any readers but theists.
A political theist complains of Oppenheimer's article, "All the strange birds of the materialist faith certainly will flap about madly now and land gratefully on it. "
Undoubtedly! However, regardless of Flew's actual or beguiled beliefs, this proves nothing either way about the possibility of existence or nonexistence of the supernatural entity that theists refuse to relinquish to reason and evidence.
Most atheists seem to be taking a position much like mine–that it is deplorable to take advantage of an ageing man, yet that Flew's apparent 'change of mind' signifies nothing about the philosophical principles underlying the God/NoGod debate. I doubt that the perpetrators of this apparent mental embezzlement are concerned to change atheists' minds on the God question. Instead they probably expected to provide succor to offended theists who are upset at vocal questioning of their belief systems.
Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog links to an "exclusive" interview with Anthony Flew that appears on ToTheSource. I used quotes because I admit to a distrust of the honest of political theists such as the ID crowd.
The Anti-Discovery Institute came up with a misapplied title "The Cuckoo Ones Over Flew’s Nest", which attempts to distance DI from complicity by asserting, "Flew seems to have read a couple of DI-affiliated philosophers. But reading the Nickerson article, you don’t see any direct references by Flew to Discovery scientists." The author of this brief piece complains that the New York Times' editorial policy that "has not covered any news that might damage Darwinism, at least not since a writer on its Science page a few years back acknowledged that some of the standard textbook proofs employed to bolster Darwin’s theory are false. (That reporter is now in Iraq.)" Um, great news on the policy and reporters are moved around, but what does that have to do with the issue at hand? The great title is misapplied because it better describes the rather nefarious activities of the religious apologists in question.
Not surprisingly, RC apologist Denyse O'Leary informs us that anonymous friends consider the Varghese . . er, Flew . . book 'excellent'. Now, there's a deft way of reviewing a book that you haven't read!
Much is being made of a recent survey conducted by a certain Reginald W. Bibby out of the University of Lethbridge. The survey is entitled Good Without God, Better With God? and is posted on Bibby's website. This is not a peer-reviewed publication, but instead is "Project Canada Press Release #10" advertizing a talk given on October 8. Read it for yourself, it is mercifully, if suspiciously, brief.
Sociological studies, particularly self-report studies are prone to a variety of biases, including sampling errors, anticipation of researcher-expectations and adjustment of self-report, bias attributable to the wording of questions, and so on. Bibby's report provides no methodological information about sampling techniques or study procedures, so the results could be biased in either direction. That is, the groups supposedly assessed could be more similar than results indicate or theists could be even more loving and atheists even less loving than indicated.
According to the report, religionists self-reported placing higher value on a number of positive, emotion-based parameters than did atheists. Bibby should have had no difficulty finding theists for his study because, although only about 70% of Canadians are believers, Lethbridge is within Canada's Bible Belt. This geographical theistic bias is reflected in the 82% of study subjects who classified themselves as theists. Let's take Bibby at his word, even though he may be biased toward religion, having received a B.D. from Southern Seminary in Louisville.
The numbers are a little suspicious, though. Bibby reported that atheists claim to value honesty less highly than do theists. Belief in supernatural deities despite admitted lack of positive evidence for the existence of these supposed entities seems to me to indicate less insistence on truth and honesty. Atheists are likely to be recovering theists who have moved away from dogma that they can no longer accept as being true–hardly an attitude to be found in those who undervalue honesty.
Atheists were most discrepant in patience and generosity, as compared to other parameters such as valuing honesty. This makes me very suspicious about sampling and wording of the questionnaire: for instance, "how long would you wait outside a church?", "how much would you donate to a religious charity?"
However, the salient point is that even if atheists do not report valuing forgiveness and courtesy, or family and friendship, as highly as do theists, this does not in any way reflect upon the truth value of theistic versus atheistic beliefs. Nor does it demonstrate that theists actually live better lives than atheists, though it could signify this. It is far more likely that the theists responded as they did because they repeatedly hear family values and forgiveness and the other positives emphasized in Sunday sermons. The results are also consonant with the observation that theists are more likely to hold theistic beliefs out of a desire for emotional comfort and community. Thus, Bibby's study may merely point to why theists choose to join religious communities, and this is not really news at all.
Bibby is likely to prove very popular with theists who wish to 'prove' their contention that 'religion makes people good, while atheism makes people bad'. Bibby's appeal particularly likely in view of the fact that it runs counter to other, peer-reviewed, sociological research:
"But in fact when you test religious and non-religious in carefully designed psychological tests, the differences evaporate. Something similar happens with church attendance: Christians in the US, for example, report going to church about twice as often as they actually do. So what's going on here? As Vassilis Saroglou, associate professor of psychology of religion at the Université catholique de Louvain, puts it: "The contrast between the ideals and self-perceptions of religious people and the results of studies using other research strategies is so striking that researchers may be tempted to suspect moral hypocrisy in religious people."" ¬ BHA Science Group.
Personally, I am an atheist because I value truth. I also value my family and friends (love), and, in no particular order, compassion, tolerance, honesty, life, humanity, beauty, intellectual stimulation, learning, cooperation, nature, self-reliance and independence, and emotional growth.
Although I prefer to be loved in return by those whom I love, I mostly value loving selected others. To be loved by those whom I do not love could actually be somewhat burdensome–it's nice to be popular, but hell to be the rage.
I suspect that my sociogram might look different than that of a religious person. A sociogram depicts the emotional distance between ourselves and others. I am very close to my family and my closest friends. Next come my friends and then my acquaintances. Beyond those towards whom I have positive feelings through acquaintance, my next level of sense of community extends way beyond tribal in-group to include humanity at large. Thus, I am more moved by the death of innocent Iraqis than by the loss of soldiers who chose to fight. For me, the out-group comprises those whose values and actions I consider inhumane, no matter what their nationality.
Even though I value tolerance very highly, I consider urgings to forgive others over-rated–it is definitely convenient and comfortable to the forgiven, but not necessarily good for the forgiver. When reached naturally as a final resolution stage, forgiveness is the relinquishing of a burden and is healthy for the forgiver. However, admonitions by the religious that the wronged must forgive impose an emotionally unhealthy demand on those not yet ready to let go. In this area, as in other areas of religious counseling, simplistic prescriptions may be decidedly bad for emotional health.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life published a survey (Sept, '07) on the influence of a candidate's perceived religiosity on voter preferences:
As in the past, most Americans continue to say that it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs. And voters who see presidential candidates as religious express more favorable views toward those candidates than do voters who view them as not religious. But the latest Pew survey finds that candidates for the White House need not be seen as very religious to be broadly acceptable to the voting public.
An alarming 61% of American voters said "they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who does not believe in God, while 45% say they would be reluctant to vote for a Muslim."
Presumably, many of these anti-atheist and anti-Muslim voters are aware of 9/11 and do support the "war on terror". In view of these obvious reasons for bias against Muslims, it seems extraordinary that even more voters should be anti-atheist. I was not aware of any mass murders perpetrated by atheists. Perhaps I have missed something! (Hitler and Stalin do not count as mass-murdering atheists because, no matter what their relgious convictions, they were motivated by megalomania and paranoia rather than by anti-religious purposes.)
Clearly, American voters entertain inaccurate stereotyping. Education, as always, was associated with less prejudiced perceptions.
This report is discussed in a post on the Framing Science blog.
Christiane Amanpour came under attack from theists rather than atheists for her six hour documentary presenting interviews with J-C-I religious fundamentalists.
Why were theists so negative when atheists were not? Most theists whom I read on this topic focussed on selected details and failed to see the big, damning picture: in allowing bigots such as Jerry Falwell to put his foot in his mouth, Amanpour allowed religious fanaticists to show their true colors. (Atheists, of course, already knew the bad news.)
Taken as a whole, Amanpour's God's Warriors is a damning, implicit indictment of religious fundamentalism as stated spontaneously by those who believed themselves to be speaking on behalf of their personal, religious viewpoint. This puts me in mind of a line in AFew Good Men where Tom Cruise's character decides to put Jack Nicholson's character on the stand because Cruise senses that Nicholson's character wants to tell his objectionable, self-incriminating version of "the truth".
I think that, like Cruise's defense attorney, Christiane gave the religious fundamentalists rope and they hanged any justification for religious zealotry. Was this Amanpour's intention? I'd very much like to think so. Amanpour, after all, grew up in Iran; attended a convent school in England, where she has lived since the Iranian revolution; married a Jew; and, has covered religiously motivated violence as a foreign correspondent.
On the subject of professional objectivity, Amanpour previously said: "There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing."[3]
I have been taking a closer look at Richard Dawkins because of a discussion that I recently read between an theist and a theist who contends that Dawkins is a cult figure. Judging by the ad hominem attacks on Dawkins and illogical attacks on his message, his campaign for-science-against-religion is successful.
Dawkins on Hitchens : The Times Literary Supplement features (September 05, 2007) an interesting review by Richard Dawkins of Christopher Hitchens' "God is not great". . . more.
Theistic Fallacies : A variety of illogical attacks against atheism are misdirected toward Richard Dawkins and the New Atheist spokespeople. . . more.
Obviously, many people in Western society get stuck in an increasingly elaborate, circular theistic stage. I'd categorize "theistic beliefs" as including deistic (pre-cosmology and pre-evolution supernatural agency) or theistic (varying degrees of God did it) beliefs coupled with the emotionally essential afterlife beliefs.
Deism: The belief that God exists but is not involved in the world. It maintains that God created all things and set the universe in motion and is no longer involved in its operation. (www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_c-d.htm)
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